by Kim Ekemar
The captain listened to the eerie-sounding gale that kept blowing through the Beagle Channel. He decided to once again contact Mateo by radio.
“Mateo, this is Captain Abasolo, do you read me?” he spoke into the radio. “I just want to reassure you that Stella Australis is safely anchored not far from you, and that I’d like to reiterate that I expect you to board us at first light.”
The sound was tenuous yet strong enough to make out Mateo’s response.
“Copy that, Captain”, Mateo’s voice came back between crackles.
“Is everyone all right?”
“No major complaints beyond having missed dinner.” Mateo tried his best to come across as cheerful. “We have built wind shelters where most of us are now asleep. As for water, we have managed on melted snow.”
“Good, Mateo. Try to get some sleep yourself.”
“What happened? Why –”
“It’s complicated. I’ll give you the details when you’re back on the ship”, Captain Abasolo interrupted him. “Get back to me if any emergency occurs.”
“Of course.”
“Over and out.”
*
Half asleep and numb with cold, Alfredo Carbonara noticed how the fire he had helped build earlier was dying. He wondered drowsily whether he should get up and find more firewood, when he saw the silhouette of Mateo place more branches on the fire embers and blow on them until the flames got higher. Hungry and tired, he snuggled against the unknown woman snoring lightly by his side. They had been advised to rest together in close groups to maintain their body warmth. Roberto, his younger son, lying on his other side, shivered in the freezing midnight temperature. Carbonara felt a nagging worry about his son’s imminent need of the insulin that had remained on board the ship.
With the help of two other guides, Mateo moved to replenish the fires. Mateo knew they had to do so every hour or so until dawn arrived. He felt tired to his bones. However, moving around doing chores had the benefit of the exercise keeping him warm. Mateo’s greatest concern was for the children who had made the excursion to the glacier – in all, there were five of them. The temperature was at least minus five degrees Celsius. With the wind factor taken into account, he estimated it to be at least ten degrees below zero.
*
At 7:30 in the morning, there was a knock on Ricardo’s cabin. Having been unable to sleep, he got out of bed, put on the ship’s complimentary morning gown and opened the door. It was the captain. His face was pallid from lack of sleep.
“I got the response from the Buenos Aires police department that you asked for”, he said and handed over a sheaf of papers. “I’ve gone over them. They certainly make for interesting reading. It appears that you’ve requested information about a handful of characters who have decided to be circumspect either about their true identities or their activities.”
Ricardo invited him in and they both sat down on the unmade bed.
“For starters, Ari Cohen was not an Israeli”, the captain continued. “He was a fugitive Syrian navy admiral wanted for crimes against humanity. Imagine, a navy admiral! No wonder he was such an accomplished seaman. Well, his real name was Adnan Shadid. I’ll leave it to you to evaluate the others.”
He waited while Ricardo quickly browsed the information obtained through Interpol.
“Can you call the police in Ushuaia and request a full crime scene investigation once we arrive there?” Ricardo asked and looked up at him. “We also need an ambulance to take the body to the morgue for autopsy.”
“Rest assured, I’ve already considered what you’re asking. I’ll also allow all passengers not on your list of suspects to go ashore when we get to Ushuaia”, the captain responded, “but I won’t give leave to any of the crew. Those are my orders from headquarters. They are sending the company lawyers and an insurance adjuster to evaluate the damages.”
“That’s fine with me”, Ricardo confirmed. “As discussed earlier, please keep the passports of those whose reports were sent by Interpol, along with my own, locked up in your safe.”
The captain nodded in agreement and left the cabin.
Ricardo decided he must take a different approach to understand who Ari Cohen’s murderer was. Grabbing a pencil and some stationery, he created an hour-long timeline from 2:40 in the afternoon to 3:40, right after Ernesto had opened the door to the bridge to let Ricardo inside. When he was finished, this is what he had written down:
At 2:41, Captain Abasolo ordered the ship to cross the bay, before he a few minutes later left the bridge to go to his cabin.
At 2:48, Crenshaw arrived at the Darwin Lounge, where he joined Charlie, Evelyn, Leila, Antanias and Ferah. The only passenger not accounted for at this time was Mohraki, who was in his cabin bedridden from food poisoning. The bartender was serving drinks. Patricio and the other three waiters were playing cards on the Patagonia deck. Berenice claimed to have been preparing the next day’s programme in her cabin. Segundo was emphatic that he had been smoking on the Sky Lounge balcony.
At 2:49, Ferah left the Darwin Lounge and claimed that she had gone to the ship’s souvenir shop on the Magallanes deck.
At 2:51, Miguel, the bartender, left the Darwin Lounge to go to the lavatory. Moments later, Charlie complained about the service and loudly pronounced that he and his wife Evelyn would leave. They went outside together on the same deck to smoke a cigarette.
At 2:55, Ferah claimed to have bumped into the captain on the staircase between the Magallanes and the Tierra del Fuego decks, where she had complained to him about having been left behind, unable to go ashore to see the glacier. Captain Abasolo had later stated this wasn’t true – he had run into her half an hour before he had ordered to move the ship across the bay. No one except for Antanias could vouch for her whereabouts until hours later.
At 2:58, Antanias left the Darwin Lounge and, after going to the lavatory where the bartender confirmed he had run into him before his return to the lounge, he asserted that he had gone to his cabin, number 424, on the deck immediately below, which was located close to the bridge. He claimed to not have seen anyone in the corridor.
At 3:00, Charlie and Evelyn passed through the Darwin Lounge after smoking on the exterior deck next to the gym. Both claimed to have gone directly to their cabin, number 314, two decks below.
At 3:03, Crenshaw left the Darwin Lounge, after having finished the beer he had ordered. The bartender entered the lounge as Crenshaw left. The only person still in the lounge apart from the bartender was Leila, who Crenshaw had mentioned was no longer using her tablet.
At 3:05, Ernesto left the bridge to descend to the engine room deck in search of Segundo, the assistant engineer who hadn’t presented himself for work despite being on standby duty.
At 3:06, Crenshaw was observed by the two housekeepers to have entered the Yamana Lounge before he walked out onto the balcony.
At 3:09, the waiter Patricio left the game of bridge and went to the cabin he shared with Segundo. The cabin was empty. This was when one of the ship’s engines was started and, without waiting for Ernesto’s return, Ari Cohen decided to single-handedly navigate the ship across the bay. At the same time, Crenshaw claimed to have begun his return to his cabin, number 422, on the same deck as the bridge. Both Crenshaw and Antanias said they had seen no one else before entering their cabins.
Between 3:10 and 3:11 is when the killer must have entered the bridge from the corridor. If he or she had tried to access it from one of the side doors leading to the flying bridge, the killer would have been spotted by Shadid. This was the hour when Antanias claimed to have entered his cabin in search of Ferah.
At 3:12, just as Antanias was stepping outside his cabin, the shot that killed Shadid rang out. Nevertheless, Antanias walked away from the bridge and down the stern staircase. Upon hearing it, the bartender left the Darwin Lounge in a hurry and went to the deck below. The murderer remained another five to ten minutes on the bridge before making his or her inexplicable escape. Crenshaw
asserted that he had returned to his cabin before he heard the shot. Dr Bautista claimed he was reading in his cabin.
At 3:13, Ernesto and the bartender Miguel almost simultaneously reached the door leading to the bridge. They found it locked. From within, they could hear a pounding sound.
At 3:14, Patricio returned to the cabin where the ongoing bridge game was being played. The captain rushed up the stairs from the lower deck to the Tierra del Fuego deck, where he was met by Ricardo.
At 3:15, Captain Abasolo and Ricardo found Ernesto and Miguel outside the locked door. They both reported the previous pounding from the bridge, which now had ceased.
At 3:16, Antanias found Ferah on the Magallanes deck. A minute later, he claimed to briefly have seen Berenice by the staircase. However, Ferah, who insisted that she had been in Antanias’s company, didn’t recall having seen Berenice, nor had Berenice seen either Antanias or Ferah.
At 3:18, the captain and Ernesto ran down to the engine room to fetch tools to enable them to enter the commanding bridge from the flying bridge.
At 3:24, the two housekeepers returned to the now deserted Yamana Lounge.
At 3:25, the bartender returned to the Darwin Lounge, which was empty except for Leila, who was listening to music on her tablet. Moments later, Captain Abasolo and Ernesto arrived. They lowered themselves from the balcony down onto the flying bridge, broke the windscreen to one of the side doors.
At 3:31, Ernesto opened the main door to the bridge to let Ricardo inside.
The critical fifteen minutes, Ricardo realised, were the ones from 3:10 p.m. to 3:24 p.m. However, not a single one of the nine suspects had a solid alibi during this time, unless you accepted those given by the spouses or couples vouching for each other. The window for the killer to leave the bridge was even smaller, less than ten minutes – after the pounding had ceased until the captain had climbed down to the flying bridge.
Nine suspects without an alibi, no apparent motive and a magic disappearance trick from a locked room … who was the culprit?
CHAPTER 20
The Rescue
A few minutes before nine, Ricardo yawned as he got dressed. Outside it was becoming lighter – a new day had begun. The surroundings were enveloped in a fog that made it difficult to see anything but the blurred rocks lining the strait. He wondered briefly how Carolina had succeeded in persuading him to take a cruise in a place with such miserable and constantly changing weather.
Ricardo knocked on the captain’s cabin. The captain barked that the door was open.
“Have you learnt anything new?” he asked, when he looked up and saw Ricardo enter.
“I’m more confident than ever that the killer is among my nine suspects, considering the fifteen-minute window of time that the killer had at his or her disposal”, Ricardo replied and sat down opposite him. “But I can’t say I have something conclusive yet. I need to conduct additional interrogation of the suspects. However, I’d prefer to do it in the presence of the chief of police of Ushuaia, once we get there.”
The captain sighed wearily.
“I’ve ordered my crew to weigh anchor now that we’re getting daylight. We‘re moving closer to the Pia Glacier to make it easier for the Zodiacs to board us. Due to the leak we have in the hull, we need to proceed at a significantly reduced speed. However, I think we should be able to reach Ushuaia in the early afternoon.”
In immediate response to the captain’s words, a subtle vibration could be felt through the floor. The ship began moving.
“I think I’ll have some breakfast”, Ricardo said, and stood up, “and then I’ll try to catch some sleep for an hour or two. It’s been an exhausting experience.”
“Indeed”, Captain Abasolo agreed. “I only wish I could allow myself the same luxury.”
After having breakfast, Ricardo went back to his cabin, undressed and slipped under the cool sheets in his bed. Still, he found it impossible to sleep. Again, he went over the testimonies of the nine suspects in his head, wondering what he was missing. One of them had to be the murderer, but who among them was it?
*
“Mateo, this is Captain Abasolo”, Mateo heard the captain’s voice over the radio, as he saw the shadowy shape of Stella Australis enter the foggy bay facing the Pia Glacier. “We are ready to moor in the bay. There’s quite a lot of ice from the glacier floating in the water and the morning mist is on the heavy side, but at least the wind has died down. If you manoeuvre the Zodiacs at slow speed, you shouldn’t have any problem reaching the ship.”
“All right, I’ll get the people ready for the transfer. I hope you have some hot chocolate and plenty of breakfast ready for us when we climb on board. It’s been a long, cold night.”
His radio crackled and he had to ask the captain to repeat his response.
“Count on it, Mateo.”
Mateo called on his crew to gather around him and explained to them that they should get ready to return to the ship.
Some passengers had already risen from their pine branch beds.
“Look, the ship is back!” someone called out, pointing at the blurry outline of Stella Australis that barely could be discerned in the fog.
“Listen, everyone!” Mateo shouted with his hands placed around his mouth, imitating a megaphone. “We’re now preparing to go back to the ship where a hot meal is waiting. Please approach the guide you were assigned when we disembarked yesterday.“
The rumbling noise from the glacier calving another mass of ice almost drowned out the cheerful response from the passengers.
*
Through his binoculars, Captain Abasolo watched how the first Zodiac carefully made its way across the bay, while every now and then bumping into floating ice.
He was interrupted by a sharp, insistent knock on the door leading to the bridge. When he opened it, he found a pale Charlie Bright standing outside.
“Evelyn – my wife – has disappeared! I’ve looked for her all over the ship, but I can’t find her anywhere!”
Captain Abasolo’s immediate reaction was to close his eyes and with a tired gesture clutch his forehead with his hand, thinking he didn’t need more problems on top of those he was already facing.
“When did you last see her?” he asked Charlie.
“That would be just before she went to your cabin to be interrogated by that cop from Buenos Aires. I was interviewed by him before she went, and I fell asleep before she returned. When I woke up about an hour ago, I began searching for her. There’s no trace whatsoever that she returned to our cabin after the interview.”
“All right”, the captain sighed, wearily. “I’ll get some of the crew to search the ship from top to bottom, and in case they reach the same conclusion as you have, I’ll radio the coastguard to ask for their help.”
*
By a quarter to ten, all passengers and crew abandoned by the Pia glacier had safely been brought back on board Stella Australis. While they were feasting on the hot buffet that the chef had prepared, Captain Abasolo ordered the anchor to be weighed and for the ship to proceed towards Ushuaia.
Gradually, the fog lifted and the ominous rainclouds transformed to a lighter colour. Berenice went from cabin to cabin to ask the passengers to pack their belongings, to leave the bags in the corridor with the different coloured straps carrying their names for identification and to be prepared to disembark in a few hours.
Following the captain’s orders, she didn’t knock on the doors to the cabins accommodating those passengers who Ricardo still considered suspects.
CHAPTER 21
Ushuaia
It was one in the afternoon, just as the sun was coming out, when the passengers on board Stella Australis finally could set their eyes upon Ushuaia. The vividly painted buildings in the small city of 65,000 inhabitants were set against a background of snow-covered mountains. The harbour was ice-free and, since the wind had died down, the reflections of various fishing vessels moored in it could be seen as a reversed image in the stil
l waters.
In a muted voice, Berenice bid farewell to the passengers as they disembarked onto the quay where their luggage had previously been lined up. An ambulance and three police vehicles made their way onto the dock. One of the uniformed policemen announced to Berenice, who was standing in the reception lounge, that he was Chief of Police Adalberto Villaverde.
“I need to speak with Ricardo Arriaga”, he told her in a no-nonsense voice.
Ferah made it down the staircase to the reception.
“Why is everyone going ashore, and how come I still haven’t been informed?” she complained in a loud voice. “I insist that you take my luggage, too, and hand me back my passport!”
Before Berenice had a chance to answer, a perspiring Antanias joined them in the reception area.
“Exactly! I demand my passport! You can’t keep us here against our will.”
That moment, Ricardo limped slowly down the staircase, having overheard the exchange.
“I’ve given instructions that no one who was present on the ship when the death of the sailor took place can leave until the Ushuaia police department approves”, Ricardo said in a firm voice, as he approached to greet the chief of police. “And, as a matter of protocol, that includes myself. The chief of police must get the opportunity to evaluate the situation for himself.”
He shook hands with Villaverde.
“Please follow me to a quieter place so that I can brief you of my findings so far”, Ricardo told Villaverde in a low voice.
They proceeded down the corridor, leaving Berenice to deal with the angry passengers.
Sitting down in the small Yamana Lounge together with the captain, Ricardo went over the details of his findings. One of the three subordinates who accompanied Villaverde took notes. The chief of police interrupted frequently when he wanted Ricardo to clarify some detail.